Posted
by
timothyon Tuesday November 05, 2013 @11:10AM
from the but-our-turnabout-is-fair-play dept.

cold fjord writes with this excerpt from The Verge: "Brazil this week admitted to spying on diplomats from countries including the US, Russia, and Iran as part of a domestic program launched 10 years ago ... The program was first revealed in a Monday report from the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, which obtained documents from the Brazilian Intelligence Agency, commonly known as ABIN. The revelations come at a sensitive time for current Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, who has been among the most outspoken critics of the widespread surveillance conducted by the US National Security Agency (NSA). According to Folha, Brazilian intelligence spied on rooms rented out by the US embassy in Brasilia from 2003 to 2004. ... The report also claims that ABIN targeted Russian and Iranian officials, tracking their movements within the country ... Rousseff's office acknowledged Monday that the spying took place, but stressed that the operations were carried out within the law. The administration added that publishing classified documents is a crime in Brazil, and that those responsible 'will be prosecuted according to the law.' ....the revelations may put Rousseff in an awkward position. The Brazilian president cancelled a state dinner with Barack Obama earlier this year ... and lashed out against US spying in an impassioned speech to the UN in September."

And you would bet your life that Brazil does not listen into any IP traffic in it's borders? Want to bet that they also have listening posts to pick up any OTA em they can. Best of all the line that leaks like this are illegal and the leakers will be prosecuted.

When 'spies' from the diplomatic corps are leaving the embassy, they are being tailed in every country of the world you can imagine and they will try to shake their pursuers off. That are just ordinary counter-intelligence operations as opposed to NSA's spying on ordinary citizens (including citizens of their own country) on a widespread scale. The two issues are barely related to each other.

Its not about spying, I would be surprised if there was a country that didn't spy. It is about scale, when you start spying on everyone, indiscriminately it is a problem.

The government should put under surveillance people that they have reason to suspect of a crime, or has some important information, not just anyone.

It surprises me when there is outrage when spying happens diplomatic figures like Angela Merkel, but not when it is done on everyone. They are people in positions of power who's decisions may have serious implications, what do you expect? It goes to show the politicians think that privacy is important, but just their own.

But when you start spying on everyone, no matter who they are, no matter what they have done, then you are now granting the spies far too much unnecessary power.

Sauce for the goose? Or is it crow? I wonder how they prepare crow in Brazil?

Well, we don't. The common crow isn't found in Brazil. We have Azure Jays and White-naped Jays (same family, different genus, I believe).
But what "sauce for the crow" means? Sorry to ask, but English is my second language.

When Brazil gets caught spying on millions of people around the world, you'd have a point. Or bugging the phones of dozens of allied leaders. Just spying on a few diplomats in their own country is hardly the same. But I'm sure to you they're identical, as that easily allows your simmering brain to relax slightly, safe in the knowledge that even if the US is doing something bad (which you'd sorely hate, and refuse to believe even in the face of evidence), someone else is doing something too, even if it do

The president of Brazil explicitly condemned spying on diplomats in her speech at the UN. Brazil has been revealed to spy on diplomats. It's not a subtle point, and very little counting is required to understand it.

Direct tapping of communications from a Head of State IS routine counter-intelligence operations for every country with the technical ability to do so. I'm curious - if Al Assad or Ahmadinejad or Putin had/has the ability to tap Obama's (or Hussain or Musharraf's) phone, do you think they would have said, "Oh, no, he's a head of state - make sure the security service doesn't tap his phone - those are privileged conversations and we have no interest or right in listening in"?

It's almost as if governments, in general, are not to be trusted. Wow! Who would have ever imagined that their own government would do something like that? I mean, it is not as if every single government since the beginning of time as eventually gotten out of control or anything like that. Oh, wait....

This story reeks of the NSA trying to do damage control and doing a piss-poor job of it.

As best as I can tell it boils down to brazil having tailed some foreign diplomats while they were in country. OMG! So that makes them even with the NSA breaking into anything and everything on the internet. It's totally the same!

Actually, they almost certainly do, as part of normal espionage practice. I'm not saying they're monitoring every time a diplomat takes a shit, but they will be keeping half an eye on their actions w.r.t. international relations.

oh yes keeping tabs on your formal interactions or building a profile on avowed diplomats is one thing but tailing! its what you do to people considered to be actual Intelligence officers to see who they contact and if they are running any illegals or other agents.

Depends on exactly what you mean by 'tailing': you could track someone's every action, or just keep a rough itinerary of their general movements e.g. ''1pm - had lunch with PM at Nandos, 2pm - went to cinema'. Anyway, who's to say a diplomat isn't an intelligence officer? I bet someone's tried it.

You got me! They bugged a room with diplomats, which is exactly the same as scooping up everything they can get on anyone they can think of.

I don't really have a problem with any spy agency spying on another government, that's their job and so this whole thing about Angela Merkel losing her shit is laughable. In fact its sauce for the goose since she didn't seem to have a problem when the NSA was only spying on regular people.

This example in Brasil is just government-on-government spying and really low-ke

There are dozens of countries with more than enough money to engage in that level of spying, and yet they don't. You're just making excuses so you don't have to think your country isn't the bastion of freedom it claims to be.

I fail to understand why international espionage comes as a shock to anyone. Nations (or states or political entities or nation-states or what-have-you) have been spying on each other since someone figured out that knowing more about someone than they know about you can give you an advantage.

No, it's scale, scope and above all where the spying is done. They are not equivalent, and nobody expects the NSA/CIA to not spy on diplomats inside the US borders, or even ones in countries with with which the US does not have good diplomatic relations. They are however expected to not spy on US citizens without very good cause, or foreign citizens in friendly countries without similar justifications. Above all, the "gather it all, let hadoop sort it out" mindset is disturbing, unjustified, and of great concern. The brazil incident is nowhere near the same, period.

Not everyone thinks about international espionage for one, so that's why it's a shock to some people. And some of us are merely ACTING shocked, since acting like it was normal and okay only serves to keep big brother going.

I fail to understand why international espionage comes as a shock to anyone.

Look at the submitter. He's also one of the most active posters in the thread. This is propaganda from 'cold fjord' - a straw man that he builds, feigning outrage about run-of-the-mill international spying in hopes of distracting you from the massive illegal surveillance of ordinary US citizens practiced by the US government.

Because most of the outrage about foreign spying is from the uninformed. "OMG, we spy on our friends????" Last week I heard Peter King, Congressman from NY, relay a story about how a politician in France (?) was opposed to something we were doing to aid the Afghans against the Soviets. It turned out he was vested in some business venture that would have profited from a Soviet pipeline through Afghanistan (which we learned by spying on our "friends").

Following agents of a foreign country inside the territory of your own country is not the same as spying on the entire conencted population of the world. One is targeted and low key, aimed at the potentially nefarious activities of foreign nationals potentially connected to foregin security services, on your own territory, the other is a gross and global invasion of privacy. a total abuse of privileged position, a collosal breach of trust that undermines the safe usage of all forms of modern communication. No modern system that contains American or British electronics or communicates with systems or over connections held on the territory of those nations or their allies, is beyond suspicion. No router, no computer, no modem, no chip, no mobile. In fact those very devices should be considered as compromised and unfit for use.

All US Embassy ban all civilians from bringing in consumer electronic devices.From: http://london.usembassy.gov/ukembmap.html [usembassy.gov]"PLEASE DO NOT bring Electronic devices such as mobile phones, Blackberries, iPods, iPads, notebook computers, PDAs, headsets, remote-entry automobile key "fobs" or anything with a power plug or battery, as they are not allowed within the Embassy grounds."

Keep this fully in mind when some country is spouting off on their outrage, or thinking about offering services because of their "strong privacy laws".

None of these bastards, nor their successors, will hesitate for a fraction of a nanosecond if they think they'll gain something by violation of your rights.And if you think they will, because of something written down on a piece of paper someplace, you're fucking deluded.

governments routinely spy on eachother. Governments do not routinely spy wholesale on the citizens of other nations and claim it as their privilege.

The concern remains as stated: a country that practices rendition, torture, and indefinite detention without trial is now spying on anyone and everyone. this is a country that has operated secret prisons and invaded without cause soverign nations. America bombs indiscriminately anyone it decides through secret process to be an enemy combatant with any unintentional target in the bombing posthumously declared an enemy combatant. This is a country that is perpetually at war, maintains the highest prison population in the world, and its now spying for all intents and purposes on absolutely everything and everyone. In my opinion as an American, concerns from the international community are absolutely valid and reasonable.

We've been doing our damndest to change that, but when close to half the population -knowingly- and -willingly- supports said practices, plus benefits from a military-industrial economy that is geared up to specifically support that, then change is going to be a long time coming. Almost half our populace is tribalistic to the point where they are willing to support all of what you described, simply because it's done to those who aren't members of the tribe. Furthermore, the easy political solutions to this (liberal fascism, abolishment of the Congress and turning the Executive into a true tyrant, etc) come at too high a cost. What you're arguing about is the dark side of human nature... come back to me when you've come up with a cure that doesn't involve tyranny or death.

You often find what you look for in other people - every child knows this. The old man who shouts angrily at "those hoodlum kids" may find his sentiment confirmed, but if he thinks they're wonderful creatures deserving of a smile they may rise to his expectation. In the 80's America looked for heroes in Afghanistan and found them, and today amongst the same people it looks for terrorists. Now we find America regards the whole world including it's own citizens as potential terrorists, and this is very dan

Nonsense. The only reason historically that government (and by that I mean any government) didn't spy on everyone was a lack of resources, not some sort of ethical boundary. (Witness the Soviet surveillance state, with their relatively primitive tech.)

Now with massive computing power, ubiquitous observation (you know, to protect us from "terrorists") and our digital-online lives, now they can accomplish nearly-universal surveillance, and do. To expect otherwise is grossly naive.

Well, shit, if we go with what our parents taught us, most government activities go right out the window. I mean "It takes TWO people to fight!" means we'd have to shut down most military spending, then we'd have to spend a lot more on welfare!

Not at all. This isn't about one child claiming that the other child took a cookie, too. This is one child, upon finding out that the sibling took a cookie, says, "oh my, you know you should never, ever take a cookie without permission!" only to have to admit 5 minutes later that they surreptitiously took a cookie too.

This isn't about whether it's right or wrong, it's about getting caught in a double standard.

Not at all. This isn't about one child claiming that the other child took a cookie, too. This is one child, upon finding out that the sibling took a cookie, says, "oh my, you know you should never, ever take a cookie without permission!" only to have to admit 5 minutes later that they surreptitiously took a cookie too.

OK, so now spying on a handful of diplomats (Read: spies by another name) within your own borders is exactly equivalent to gobbling up and storing indefinitely the communications of every single human on the planet? You do realize there's just a bit of a difference in scale and scope, don't you?

This isn't about whether it's right or wrong, it's about getting caught in a double standard.

Is it against Brazilian law to spy on diplomats within Brazil? Because if not, then no, there is no double standard - Brazil would be operating within the constraints of their own legal system, whereas the US governm

I promise you that the next military attack on this country will not come from within the government. Based on the history of the last 25 years, I'd say you've got a 50/50 chance of the next big terrorist attack coming from a US citizen or a foreign national. It's more like 80:20 (in favor of the attack coming from a US citizen) for a smaller scale terrorist attack, but only if you discount mass shootings as simple domestic crimes which don't count as terrorism, as that would make a US citizen attacking o

Well, as long as it's legal, I see no ethical dilemmas. And as long as I can make up laws with no oversight I don't see any practical dilemmas either.

The distinguishing mark of a true criminal (and not simply a lawbreaker) is an extralegal mentality: "the law applies to others (and with extreme prejudice), but not to me." To these people the law is often mrely a tool to achieve political ends - though sometimes it is an obstacle - but in and of itself is meaningless. Unfortunately, many of these people end

It strikes me that at first we had the outrage about NSA collecting information on Americans and conducting espionage that infringes on the privacy of Americans.

Then we had revelations of intensive surveillance of friendly governments with outrage at that. I get (but don't totally agree with) the outrage this may have had in Germany, but it seems a little bit misplaced domestically in the US and I don't completely understand why Americans would be

NSA spying on foreign governments (even allies) is one of the most basic functions of pretty much any state intelligence operation. We spy on them, they spy on us, and this is the way it's always been.

This has been why, other than pearl clutching, there have been precisely zero real consequences for our relations with other countries... once you start punishing allies for spying on you, soon enough you won't have any allies left.

None of this excuses the NSA's domestic activities, but acting like there's so

There's a degree to which one watches each other, that used to be unspoken. IMHO, it needs to be publicized widely as "we will spy on your spies". Canada's RCMP, and the U.S. FBI are supposed to be counter-spies and spy on enemy spies.

They not only should do so, but they should be seen to do so. Brazil's ABIN, if they're the FBI-equivalent, should do so too.

Then we can go back to looking for regular evil spies and shooting them (:-))

How many times did I state that every country on earth does this kind of thing only to get labelled a troll by the naive tin foil hat crowd? I've said before and I'll say again that every country on earth spies to the greatest extent that their resources allows. This has been true since pre-history times. The naive acted outraged and pretended only a single party was responsible for such things.

Actually I think the main difference is technical superiority. If the <insert country upset about the NSA that also has their own spying programs> had the same capabilities as the US, does anyone in the real world really believe that they wouldn't be doing the same damn thing? In espionage you don't say "well we could tap the phones of the leader of the target country/organization, but that wouldn't be nice so we'll just tap the low level people instead". The whole point of what any of these agencies do is to get as deep into their target as possible.

I'm not excusing some of the things the NSA has done. I'm just pointing out that there is no large scale government out there that doesn't have a spying program and those spying programs are equally as greedy as those in the US (even if they aren't as capable).

Countries like France and Germany have larger economies than the UK so could trivially be doing the same kind of blanket spying GCHQ has been doing but they don't.

So yes I genuinely believe there are countries who don't do what the NSA and GCHQ does, not because they can't, not even because they can't afford to, but because they either realise it's morally unacceptable, or that spying on your average citizen is just going to land you with more data than you can possibly do anything useful with

GCHQ got caught because it did it with the Americans. How exactly would France etc. get away with it? You don't think GCHQ etc. would find their cable taps when placing their own at key UK transit points as the NSA had to do?

We know France isn't doing large scale internet tapping for the simple reason they'd be named in the NSA files alongside GCHQ and Australia intelligence services.

Notice the article is from the NY Times and quotes NBC news, two ultra liberal media outlets that normally slobber all over France's ass and any other socialist country. I mention this just to avert the all so common "Faux News" diatribe.

Countries like France and Germany have larger economies than the UK so could trivially be doing the same kind of blanket spying GCHQ has been doing but they don't.

International spying is not a trivial thing that is solved purely by money. China, Russia, the UK, and the USA are the only major players because they are the ones that have been doing it for a long time (China is the upstart, but there are multiple reasons for their quick up take beyond just money) and continue to focus on it.

I would agree that some of those countries focus their resources in other places which indeed impacts the technical ability (both toys and ability to use them effectively) of their agencies, but if they suddenly redirected resources it wouldn't change things in the near term.

So yes I genuinely believe there are countries who don't do what the NSA and GCHQ does, not because they can't,

I'm sorry, but you are childishly naive about human nature if you truly believe that. For it's security a nation needs to know as much as possible about both it's friends and foes. That is an undeniable fact. The question becomes one of balance with the other things that is expected of the government. A central similarity between the main players is that they have allowed (willingly or not) their governments to go to extreme ends for "safety".

I would also point out that a few months ago the average American would have (equally naively) argued that the US doesn't go to the levels that has now been made clear. Just because a spy agency hasn't been caught doing such things doesn't mean that they aren't doing it and to trust that they aren't is sticking your head in the sand.

Pretending "they're just jealous that they can't do this" which is what you're basically implying just gives them an excuse that is not valid and that they do not deserve.

I'm not pretending anything. The whole point of spying is to get as much data as you can about the target. That's it. Nothing more. The problem comes into when there is little or no oversight to control how far that goes. In the US the oversight (such that it is) isn't ruled by some moral compass (and I doubt it is in most other places either). Such oversight is done through politics so each decision comes down to either "how can I benefit" or "how will this hurt me" in regards to the political career. There is no room for purity in successful politics or spying.

Technology yes, but I think it is more about Corporate affiliation. The NSA are basically using corporate infrastructure to spy on the cheap, They demand these companies do so. These are *supposedly* global international companies. If Brazil went to Apple and said I demand all the information you have on Obama, what do you think the response would be? Vice Versa? Should nations be scared of using technology produced by america? Yes. This is why since the Patriot Act came into being, I would never ever use a

BTW The difference between "mass surveillance" and "spying on diplomats" (foreign diplomats as guest in ones own country, that is) is exactly what this is about, so I'm not sure why you're accusing GP of trying to sneak a switch past us.

how do you know that Brazil both doesn't do it, and isn't heading in that direction if they aren't?

Because here in Brazil the government underfunds everything military or related due to the fact that since two decades every civilian government we've had was composed of people who were enemies and/or were persecuted by said military during our dictatorship, and hence deeply, deeply dislike them.

ABIN in particular is a joke. They have no actual technological prowess nor are they going to develop any. Maybe on the very long-term they do, but right now nope, not a chance.

I certainly wouldn't disparage the ability of Brazilian programmers. In fact Brazil is actually an under appreciated powerhouse in that regard based on what I have seen. I also wouldn't doubt that many of them are proud Brazilians willing to assist their government if asked to do so.

Even if Brazil isn't currently engaged in espionage, it has much more potential than many people give it credit for. Even in military affairs this is true. After all, it was Brazil that taught the Chinese many lessons about

By the way, how do you know that Brazil both doesn't do it, and isn't heading in that direction if they aren't?

The same way we know you aren't killing babies in satanistic rituals in your basement: we don't, we just have no reason to suspect it. And neither do you, you're just desperately trying to justify US government's actions for whatever reason. Care to explain why? Because, even for an excuse, "they might be thinking of doing it too" is beyond pathetic and bordering on pitiful.

The history shows that countries gather intelligence on each other in any way they can. It would be irresponsible not to do so. Based on anything I know about international diplomacy I would be absolutely amazed if any country refrains from gathering data for ANY reason other than actual inability to do so. Of course US has more power in this regard than Brazil but I'm pretty sure countries like China and Russia are doing everything US is doing and more.

If Brazil spies on diplomats, to me that is a pretty clear reason to suspect that there might be additional surveillance taking place. It doesn't mean that it is taking place, but it doesn't pass the straight face test to say there is "no reason to suspect it".

The difference is that the US makes such a big deal about being free, that irony continues to gush uncontrollably from the whole NSA scandal, the PATRIOT act, the TSA bullshit, the constant invasions of other countries, the attempts at blocking healthcare for poorer citizens, etc, etc...

The difference is that the US makes such a big deal about being free, that irony continues to gush uncontrollably from the whole NSA scandal, the PATRIOT act, the TSA bullshit, the constant invasions of other countries, the attempts at blocking healthcare for poorer citizens, etc, etc...

How does blocking Obamacare qualify as irony in regards to being free?